Monthly Archives: November 2005

Mark Steyn devotes his Sunday Sun-Times column to the pitiful condition of Hollywood’s product: “Hollywood’s PC perversion stifles storytelling.” The column’s lowlight is Steyn’s report on the DVD “Looney Tunes Golden Collection”: I stopped to buy the third boxed set in the “Looney Tunes Golden Collection.” Loved the first two: Daffy, Bugs, Porky, beautifully restored, tons of special features. But, for some reason, this new set begins with a special »

…always the victor over those who try to make it stand still. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Michael Barone diagnoses the downfall of General Motors as the demise, not of a company, but of a system that included not only the Big Three automakers and the United Auto Workers, but a vision of how the postwar economy should develop: The success of the Big Three and the UAW seemed »

Cindy Sheehan’s moment of fame, that is. The Washington Post delivers a surprisingly honest assessment of Sheehan’s latest effort in Crawford, Texas: Unlike [last August], when hundreds came from all over the country for major events at the two campsites named after Sheehan’s son, who was killed in Iraq, Sheehan found herself addressing a crowd of only about 100 Saturday afternoon. The large tent where supporters had erected a stage »

When President Bush first identified Iraq, Iran and North Korea as examples of an “axis of evil,” the list seemed, in some respects, an odd assortment. Iran and Iraq have been bitter enemies, and North Korea seemed (to me, anyway) to have little to do with either of the Islamic members of the “axis.” It has been reported, though, that North Korea and Iran have collaborated on the development of »

This op-ed in the Washington Post by Senator Joseph Biden provides a reminder of why Democrats are unfit to direct this country’s foreign policy. Let’s start with this sentence: Our large military presence [in Iraq] — while still the only guarantor against a total breakdown — is increasingly counterproductive. But if our military is the only guarantor against a total breakdown how can its presence be counterproductive? After offering up »

At Democracy Project, Bruce Kesler pays tribute to Midge Decter: “Thanskgiving for Midge Decter.” The occasion for Kesler’s tribute appears to be Midge’s Heritage Foundation lecture this past week — “The Never-Ending War” — but Kesler dates his admiration of Midge to a paragraph she published in 1968 that inspired him to leave graduate school and enlist in the Marines to contribute to “our mission in Vietnam.” Kesler deems Midge »

The always excellent Clifford May commends Rep. Murtha for sparking an honest debate over our policy in Iraq, rather than skirting the hard questions by invoking the “Bush lied” lie. May then proceeds to demonstrate why, at every level, Murtha’s cut and run proposal would have disastrous consequences. In passing, May alludes to a point that has not sufficiently been stressed — the need to finish with Saddam Hussein. It’s »

Rich Noyes of the Media Research Center compares the network news coverage of the Samuel Alito and Ruth Bader Ginsburg nominations. His overall finding is what you would expect — outrageous liberal bias. When Alito was nominated, ABC, CNN, and CBS raced to see how many times they could squeeze the word conservative into their stories (NBC was less insistent). When Ginsburg was nominated the MSM networks uniformly pronounced her »

This story in the Jerusalem Post is interesting on several levels. It is noteworthy that more than 10,000 Hizbollah supporters turned out in Lebanon for the funeral of three terrorists who were killed by the IDF a few days ago. It is interesting that Hizbollah’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, announced that “It is our natural right to capture Israeli soldiers. Indeed it is our duty to do that. It is »

Victor Davis Hanson reviews some of the evidence linking Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda. He also cites the Clinton Justice Department’s 1998 indictment against bin Laden, which stated: al-Qaida reached an understanding with the Government of Iraq that al-Qaida would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al-Qaida would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq. The evidence pointed in the same direction »

I thought that liberals had accused President Bush of every possible offense, real or imagined, but no: a former Canadian Minister of Defence has now accused Bush of fomenting intergalactic warfare with aliens. Really: Paul Hellyer, Canadas Defence Minister from 1963-67 under Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prime Minister Lester Pearson, publicly stated: “UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head.” Mr. Hellyer went on to say, »

I don’t know who first said it, but it’s a cliche that the news is a rough draft of history. I’m not so sure: this was probably true at one time, but it seems to me that what passes for “news” in the modern world has little to do with the history that is being made. The still-ongoing Valerie Plame saga is just one of many recent examples of front-page »

Daniel Johnson has one of the must-read columns of the day in this morning’s New York Sun: “Should Bush and Blair bomb Al-Jazeera?” Johnson’s closing paragraphs address the demand for information related to the secret document that gives rise to the controversy and coincidentally add an exclamation point to Leo McKinstry’s article below: Actually, we have no right to know the contents of secret conversations between presidents and prime ministers. »

The ideology of multiculturalism combines nicely with mass immigration to provide the perfect recipe for national dissolution. In the new issue of the Weekly Standard, Leo McKinstry focuses on the effects of the recipe in Great Britain: “Dis-United Kingdom.” McKinstry contrasts Great Britain unfavorably with France to make his point: For the last three decades, in response to waves of mass immigration, the civic institutions of Britain have eagerly implemented »

Wednesday’s Jerusalem Post carried Kenneth Timmerman’s column summarizing the overwhelming evidence of Iran’s nuclear bomb development project: “Iran’s ongoing nuclear lies.” In this morning’s Washington Times, Bill Gertz covers the same story with additional evidence to similar effect: “U.S. says Iran is pursuing nuke arms.” Going forward, it would be folly to entrust the I.A.E.A., the U.N., or the E.U. with bringing this matter to a successful conclusion. Which probably »

Eli Lake reports in the New York Sun that the State Department — the United States State Department — had a hand in the communique signed earlier this week in Cairo by Iraqi leaders recognizing a “legitimate right to resistance”: Hand it to Secretary of State Rice. She knows how to make lemonade out of lemons. When asked on CNN this week her reaction to a communique signed by Iraqi »

The depravity of our enemies is hard, sometimes, to grasp fully. Today’s news includes this reminder of why there is no alternative to victory in the war against Islamic terrorism: The Iraqi army said on Thursday it had seized a number of booby-trapped children’s dolls, accusing insurgents of using the explosive-filled toys to target children. The dolls were found in a car, each one containing a grenade or other explosive, »